Fastener driving apparatuses, such as those apparatuses commonly known as “palm nailers,” are used as a matter of course in the construction or home improvement process. The apparatuses allow a user to accomplish tasks more quickly, and also allow a user to accomplish tasks that are otherwise not performable without a tool, such as driving nails into a surface. Palm nailers are particularly advantageous in allowing a user to drive a fastener into a surface in an area where the user otherwise does not have room to swing a hammer or use a traditionally-sized “nail gun.”
A palm nailer may be held in one's hand and may drive nails after it is connected to an energy source, such as an air compressor or battery. The palm nailer has a sleeve that may be positioned over a fastener, which sleeve includes a nailing pin that impacts the fastener after being subjected to a force generated by a piston from the energy source to drive the fastener into a substrate. To apply the generated force, the user presses on the sleeve to open a valve, which either allows compressed air into the sleeve and onto the nailing pin or completes a circuit with the battery to so do. The sleeve usually also features a magnetic element thereon for holding the fastener in a position in or by the sleeve before the force is exerted, and a spring for providing a bias on the nailing pin or fastener.
While palm nailers have their advantages, they are limited in their realm of use due to their current configuration. For instance, the reach of a palm nailer is limited to the length of its sleeve and to the length of the user's arm. In this regard, it is difficult to use a palm nailer to drive a fastener into a point near or on a ceiling. Further, the configuration of the sleeve and magnetic element thereon have drawbacks in that they do not allow for precise positioning of a fastener with respect to the rest of the palm nailer and/or to the surface into which the fastener is to be driven before the fastener is driven by the nailing pin. Moreover, in that a palm nailer may require striking a fastener a number of times to drive it into a substrate, a palm nailer may imprecisely seat a substrate if the user is unable to determine easily whether the fastener has been seated at a preferable depth in the substrate.
Accordingly, there exists a need for accessories for fastener driving apparatuses, and particularly for palm nailers, that increase the versatility and accuracy of operation of a fastener driving apparatus.